BambooHR vs. Workday Human Capital Management

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
BambooHR
Score 8.3 out of 10
N/A
BambooHR is an on-line human resources solution that provides onboarding, payroll, and benefits management. It also offers automated time-off management and employee self-service.
$250
per month
Workday HCM
Score 8.0 out of 10
N/A
Workday Human Capital Management is built as a cloud-based system with global consistency in user experience. Workday HCM is part of a broader system with other Workday products.
$100
per year per user
Pricing
BambooHRWorkday Human Capital Management
Editions & Modules
Core
$250
per month
Pro
$250
per month
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
BambooHRWorkday HCM
Free Trial
YesNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
YesNo
Entry-level Setup FeeOptionalNo setup fee
Additional DetailsNo matter what HR looks like at your company, we have the perfect plan for you!
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
BambooHRWorkday Human Capital Management
Considered Both Products
BambooHR
Chose BambooHR
I think that Workday is a much more robust and intuitive system, but the cost for many small businesses is a barrier to entry for them. BambooHR was selected because a member of our HR team was familiar with the system and was an absolute asset to us as we integrated the …
Chose BambooHR
For small business, like myself, BambooHR is enough. When working for more giant corporations, Workday was amazing. However, I cannot compare their customer service. In terms of user experience, BambooHR is definitely better than the others listed.
Chose BambooHR
BambooHR was a more inclusive package that was much easier to navigate and use according to the team that evaluated it, I was part of this effort. We spent a lot of time on this as we were ditching several other platforms to consolidate to one tool and wanted to make sure we …
Chose BambooHR
BambooHR offers flawless perfoming apps for different operating systems and it is recommended to remote and decentralized teams. It has a quote-based pricing scheme which can be tailored by any business to meet their needs no matter the size and even before making the final …
Chose BambooHR
I have never worked with bamboo before this and I think there is no better program than this one.
Chose BambooHR
UltiPro, from what I remember, was clunky and always had an awkward calculation of my hours. I could not "project" how much PTO I would have when I wanted to take time off in the future. Also, I was planning my maternity leave with UltiPro, and I truly feel like the software …
Chose BambooHR
I would say they both have a lot of strengths for sure. Workday manages data on a mass scale a little bit better in my opinion, but Bamboo HR is more user friendly and pleasing to the eyes.
Chose BambooHR
I did not select BambooHR and there is an ongoing search for the replacement of BambooHR led by our new HR VP.
Workday HCM
Chose Workday Human Capital Management
I've only used BambooHR and used an internally developed software before and those did not have half the features of Workday. That's why we switched to Workday.
Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
BambooHRWorkday Human Capital Management
Human Resource Management
Comparison of Human Resource Management features of Product A and Product B
BambooHR
8.1
103 Ratings
3% above category average
Workday Human Capital Management
7.6
91 Ratings
3% below category average
Employee demographic data7.885 Ratings8.077 Ratings
Employment history8.892 Ratings7.486 Ratings
Job profiles and administration8.591 Ratings7.388 Ratings
Workflow for transfers, promotions, pay raises, etc.8.380 Ratings7.984 Ratings
Organizational charting7.188 Ratings8.283 Ratings
Organization and location management8.081 Ratings7.881 Ratings
Compliance data (COBRA, OSHA, etc.)8.552 Ratings6.956 Ratings
Payroll Management
Comparison of Payroll Management features of Product A and Product B
BambooHR
8.1
69 Ratings
1% above category average
Workday Human Capital Management
7.7
76 Ratings
4% below category average
Pay calculation8.246 Ratings7.465 Ratings
Support for external payroll vendors8.240 Ratings7.553 Ratings
Off-cycle/On-Demand payment8.026 Ratings8.215 Ratings
Benefit plan administration8.952 Ratings7.060 Ratings
Direct deposit files8.553 Ratings7.466 Ratings
Salary revision and increment management8.153 Ratings8.063 Ratings
Reimbursement management6.827 Ratings8.339 Ratings
Leave and Attendance Management
Comparison of Leave and Attendance Management features of Product A and Product B
BambooHR
8.9
90 Ratings
10% above category average
Workday Human Capital Management
8.0
70 Ratings
1% below category average
Approval workflow9.288 Ratings8.369 Ratings
Balance details9.081 Ratings8.269 Ratings
Annual carry-forward and encashment8.572 Ratings7.456 Ratings
Employee Self Service
Comparison of Employee Self Service features of Product A and Product B
BambooHR
8.7
100 Ratings
7% above category average
Workday Human Capital Management
7.8
90 Ratings
4% below category average
View and generate pay and benefit information7.965 Ratings8.279 Ratings
Update personal information9.299 Ratings8.188 Ratings
View company policy documentation9.080 Ratings7.169 Ratings
Employee recognition8.567 Ratings7.455 Ratings
View job history9.093 Ratings8.279 Ratings
Asset Management
Comparison of Asset Management features of Product A and Product B
BambooHR
7.8
39 Ratings
1% above category average
Workday Human Capital Management
6.8
23 Ratings
13% below category average
Tracking of all physical assets7.839 Ratings6.823 Ratings
HR Reporting
Comparison of HR Reporting features of Product A and Product B
BambooHR
7.7
77 Ratings
1% above category average
Workday Human Capital Management
7.7
76 Ratings
1% above category average
Report builder8.173 Ratings8.172 Ratings
Pre-built reports7.773 Ratings7.874 Ratings
Ability to combine HR data with external data7.456 Ratings7.262 Ratings
Onboarding
Comparison of Onboarding features of Product A and Product B
BambooHR
8.6
81 Ratings
7% above category average
Workday Human Capital Management
8.1
54 Ratings
1% above category average
New hire portal8.777 Ratings8.250 Ratings
Manager tracking tools8.673 Ratings8.050 Ratings
Performance and Goals
Comparison of Performance and Goals features of Product A and Product B
BambooHR
8.2
53 Ratings
1% above category average
Workday Human Capital Management
7.7
57 Ratings
6% below category average
Corporate goal setting8.243 Ratings8.047 Ratings
Individual goal setting8.351 Ratings8.056 Ratings
Line-of sight-visibility8.240 Ratings7.149 Ratings
Performance tracking8.147 Ratings7.855 Ratings
Performance Management
Comparison of Performance Management features of Product A and Product B
BambooHR
7.9
59 Ratings
1% below category average
Workday Human Capital Management
8.2
60 Ratings
3% above category average
Performance plans7.652 Ratings8.259 Ratings
Performance improvement plans8.047 Ratings7.951 Ratings
Review status tracking7.953 Ratings8.255 Ratings
Review reminders8.255 Ratings8.455 Ratings
Multiple review frequency7.850 Ratings8.449 Ratings
Succession Planning
Comparison of Succession Planning features of Product A and Product B
BambooHR
7.2
39 Ratings
9% below category average
Workday Human Capital Management
7.0
37 Ratings
12% below category average
Create succession plans/pools5.927 Ratings7.732 Ratings
Candidate ranking7.734 Ratings6.633 Ratings
Candidate search7.134 Ratings7.335 Ratings
Candidate development8.031 Ratings6.634 Ratings
Recruiting / ATS
Comparison of Recruiting / ATS features of Product A and Product B
BambooHR
8.1
65 Ratings
4% above category average
Workday Human Capital Management
8.0
44 Ratings
3% above category average
Job Requisition Management8.045 Ratings8.242 Ratings
Company Website Posting8.353 Ratings8.435 Ratings
Publish to Social Media8.247 Ratings8.131 Ratings
Job Search Site Posting8.250 Ratings8.436 Ratings
Duplicate Candidate Prevention7.543 Ratings7.035 Ratings
Applicant Tracking8.257 Ratings7.736 Ratings
Notifications and Alerts8.760 Ratings8.340 Ratings
Best Alternatives
BambooHRWorkday Human Capital Management
Small Businesses
Patriot Software
Patriot Software
Score 9.0 out of 10
Patriot Software
Patriot Software
Score 9.0 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Paypro Workforce Management
Paypro Workforce Management
Score 9.5 out of 10
Paypro Workforce Management
Paypro Workforce Management
Score 9.5 out of 10
Enterprises
Infor Human Resources
Infor Human Resources
Score 7.3 out of 10
Infor Human Resources
Infor Human Resources
Score 7.3 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
BambooHRWorkday Human Capital Management
Likelihood to Recommend
8.9
(106 ratings)
8.6
(103 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.2
(10 ratings)
9.0
(18 ratings)
Usability
8.5
(33 ratings)
7.0
(13 ratings)
Availability
9.3
(5 ratings)
6.6
(8 ratings)
Performance
8.7
(5 ratings)
7.3
(7 ratings)
Support Rating
8.5
(36 ratings)
8.0
(22 ratings)
In-Person Training
-
(0 ratings)
9.6
(6 ratings)
Online Training
9.2
(4 ratings)
7.0
(7 ratings)
Implementation Rating
9.6
(3 ratings)
8.0
(11 ratings)
Configurability
8.6
(4 ratings)
7.5
(2 ratings)
Contract Terms and Pricing Model
8.3
(3 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Ease of integration
9.6
(2 ratings)
8.2
(1 ratings)
Product Scalability
8.9
(5 ratings)
7.3
(1 ratings)
Professional Services
9.2
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
8.9
(4 ratings)
7.0
(1 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
9.1
(4 ratings)
5.0
(1 ratings)
User Testimonials
BambooHRWorkday Human Capital Management
Likelihood to Recommend
BambooHR
BambooHR is well suited for corporate type of organization. For example, the performance reviews are great, but if something more tailored to the restaurant side were quick and easy, that would be awesome. Timekeeping, as I mentioned, could be a bit more automated. Customer service is top-notch!
Read full review
Workday
Workday human capital management is well suited for organizations to manage their employee records. It is also well suited for managing the employee's salary details, also the details of past salary changes, promotions, etc. It has options to keep track of employees' goals for the year, where they can keep track of their progress, and also managers can view the progress or share feedback. This is very helpful for tracking career progress and providing feedback. Other options, like training assigned to employees, can also be seen in Workday; users will get alerts by email for any new assignments or due assignments, etc.
Read full review
Pros
BambooHR
  • It provides an extensive system for setting up time off accruals and managing their balances.
  • It has a powerful system for managing user permissions to allow supervisors access to necessary areas and limit the access of employees.
  • It provides a very useful set of auditing tools and reports, both for tracking changes to employee profiles and who made the changes.
  • It has a clean UI that makes it easy for less tech-savvy users to interact with their HR data.
Read full review
Workday
  • Groups employees in management hierarchies and creates Org Charts that are easy to navigate and allow for visualizing management chains regardless of employee locations
  • Intuitive and easy to use. The Workday search functionality works very much like Google; one can search for anything that they have access to in the database and drill down into the various details. All information is connected through hyperlinks and users can easily keep digging into the details for as far as their security access would take them.
  • Tasks such as to do, review or approve items are sent to the user's Workday Inbox, very much resembling email. Notifications about outstanding "to do" items are also sent to each the user's work email address on a daily basis.
Read full review
Cons
BambooHR
  • Have a more robust report builder that has all the data as a filter.
  • Not all reports are able to be downloaded in different formats. I would prefer, csv, excel and PDF for all.
  • More options in the report builder to be able to customize your own reports instead of having to pay at least $200 for a simple report.
Read full review
Workday
  • The web interface is awful
  • Terrible, terrible, UI. No modern features like auto-save. I can't count the times I have lost work.
  • Their UX team (if it even exists) must be aliens, because I can't see how humans would have come up with the UI conventions they have.
  • Who creates a website application where you can't open stuff in multiple browser windows and tabs easily?
Read full review
Likelihood to Renew
BambooHR
We have tried other software in the last year and have not found it to be comparable to Bamboo HR especially in relation to the HR functionalities such as workflows, onboarding, automation, user-friendly experience, innovation, timekeeping, and ability to integrate with other 3rd party Payroll processing software. In addition, the employee ease of access and navigation of the platform makes this software crucial within our current culture of multi-site and remote work environments.
Read full review
Workday
It is work to make one system the source of truth for our data, but now that it is done, there is less work involved in staying on this path. This means for us that maintaining and/or implementing new modules like performance, finance, talent, etc. is simple. It's a no-brainer
Read full review
Usability
BambooHR
It’s a very user-friendly interface. It is modern and easy on the eyes. It is simple and not overloaded with too much detail. It is not overwhelming, and it is visually insightful for all types of learners and workers. The backend is also just as simple to use and visualize.
Read full review
Workday
Workday's on a great path in terms of user experience. Their goals is to deliver a use experience that doesn't require training or instruction, like Amazon on the consumer side for example. That's hard to do when you're talking about complex business processes and important and sensitive employee information, but they're doing it well
Read full review
Reliability and Availability
BambooHR
Yes, there is a huge team in the back of the online platform or it looks like it because I have never been left without an answer when I have a question or waiting from a response on my chat .... There must be a huge team, this is so great and I always seem to have someone that is very knowledgeable too. So many times in the past I had to leave with customer service that would connect you with someone else because of the expertise, here everyone seems to be some kind of an expert in the HR function.
Read full review
Workday
In 2014, Workday has changed the update process. There will be two updates a year; the updates will be delivered to customers typically in a 24 hour window during these two weekends a year. They also keep the Community up-to-date about any planned outages, etc. There is weekly scheduled downtime on Friday night.
Read full review
Performance
BambooHR
I love BambooHR. Reports are easy to run and download and it usually covers any types of requests I get from the management team. You get excel or .csv downloads/reports and it is fast and simple, not too crowded so it is easy to read through. We don't integrate the tool yet but again, soon we will. we just did not had the time to utilize it yet but that's the plan.
Read full review
Workday
From my perspective, the system runs like a well oiled machine and I have not had any issues with customers complaining about speed. If a report is taking long to run, the report can run in the background and you can go about your business. For larger enterprises, there is additional space and machines to process the application in what Workday refers to it as Extended Configuration Tenant
Read full review
Support Rating
BambooHR
Support is effective and responsive. During our time with BambooHR we did not experience many issues, but initial support on setup was helpful and allowed for a quick turnaround on getting started. Since then, few needs have arisen for contacting support, but I would not hesitate to do so and would recommend BambooHR based on the quality of their support team.
Read full review
Workday
Workday is still learning about the needs of higher education. I have seen rapid improvement in support and knowledge over the last year so am confident this will continue to improve. Overall however, I have found the Support Team to be extremely responsive and Workday offers the advantage of having support across several timezones so that we never wait more than a few hours for a response.
Read full review
In-Person Training
BambooHR
I didn't have in-person training besides teaching my managers how to use the program. However, I couldn't omit this question (maybe a system glitch).
Read full review
Workday
Some training is offered online. Cost is per-person. This also gets quite expensive. Training doesn’t follow a logical path A to B. Starts in middle. When you try to do it afterwards at your desk, difficult.
• Training scenarios are not very real
Read full review
Online Training
BambooHR
As far as I can recall, everything went well with doing it online and got questions answered. Was thankful to work with a dummy file to get used to some practices prior to getting our own domain within bamboo to then place our personnel information in the system, this helped a lot!
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Workday
I have done for report writing and mass imports (EIBs). They give materials and you run through examples, i.e. you don’t just watch them do tasks, so that is helpful. Training is expensive – a single reporting writing class is $600 per person for virtual training
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Implementation Rating
BambooHR
It was some work involved in moving all of our documents from a drive over to the correct folders and creating the system of what folders were needed and what got placed where
Read full review
Workday
It was implemented before my joining the company. At my last company, we used Workday professional services.

Based upon my experience at my last company, I would rate the implementation experience an 8/10. There are different ways to set things up and we had different people telling us different things. It set us back a couple of times.

Regarding configuration advice, we could set things up where every manager has supervisory organizations, or have it financially based i.e. aligned to cost center/department. We chose the individual manager path and I think we should have chosen a department route. Going down the individual manager path, to maintain the information, we have to inactivate a supervisory org whenever a manager changes/leaves.
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Alternatives Considered
BambooHR
Although there are many products in the marketplace, there is no perfect system. BambooHR is the most economical HRIS for a small business, start-up, or business that has never had HR software. BambooHR was selected for its affordable functionality. However, if they continue to ingore the lack of functionality the pretty package will no longer have any value.
Read full review
Workday
Unfortunately, I do not recall the brands of the other human capital management software programs or tools I used at my current company or workplaces prior. I do think that is a testament to Workday with its strong branding and compelling features. I was not part of the selection process of Workday but have enjoyed my experience.
Read full review
Contract Terms and Pricing Model
BambooHR
Since my organization has dropped with employees, I always find ways to reduce costs. I thought there would be a cheaper option, but I was glad that my package included a lot for the price, and downgrading would cost more. The rep could have let me downgraded and taken me to a higher package. I am thankful that didn't happen.
Read full review
Workday
No answers on this topic
Scalability
BambooHR
There is so much you can do with this platform, it is incredible and so welcoming. We don't utilize it 100% yet just because we are growing and the HR team has not been able to concentrate on other areas offered to us but but we will soon. Which is also why we got the product, specifically because what BambooHR can do to help us meet our growing business needs.
Read full review
Workday
Workday has released Financials and is continuing to develop it's Human Capital Management footprint with the addition of Workday Recruiting. I think customers will find that is easy to add on additional functionality in the system. Workday does make it easy for customers to make changes without relying on IT resources. The Business Process framework is a visual tool that allows functional resources to make changes and see the flow of the transaction
Read full review
Professional Services
BambooHR
VERY professional!
Read full review
Workday
No answers on this topic
Return on Investment
BambooHR
  • It's been a great force multiplier for our HR staff, supplementing their skills to allow them to focus on more complex tasks.
  • Employees enjoy using it and have to talk to HR staff less with the self-service options.
  • You may find as your organization grows that you outgrow a module or BambooHR and will replace with a dedicated solution.
Read full review
Workday
  • Positive ROI, we were one of the first organizations that went with Workday HCM, and we received numerous discounts. Cloud systems are the way to go and we feel the system is stable for our growing work force.
  • The user conferences have been helpful to network and learn more deepness in the modules and functionality.
  • Right off the bat, our implementation costs were lower than budgeted and we had less 'billing' surprises.
Read full review
ScreenShots

BambooHR Screenshots

Screenshot of BambooHR's Reporting